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Issue 1469 May 6, 2012
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Georgia newspaper reported drastic penalties for draft evaders in World War I.

WWI DRAGNET: Young Men Caught Without Draft Cards Hauled in to City Hall

"Work or Fight" Code Sent Cops After Slackers Even to Wenona Beach Casino

August 11, 2014       Leave a Comment
By: Dave Rogers

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World War I, that began 100 years ago this month, did not greatly affect the United States nor the local area until 1917 when this nation entered the European fray.

Then the national will to raise an army was exhibited by the efforts shown by local draft board to meet their quotas and to suppress draft evasion and shirking.

For example, in Bay City, the Times-Tribune headlined 10 August 1918: "DRAGNET OUT FOR DRAFT EVADERS. About 150 Men Caught Without Registration Certificates."

Repeating a drive that had been mounted the previous April, officials under supervision of lumbering firm executive Otto E. Sovereign of the Bay County War Board sent police into the streets, poolrooms, cigar stores, soft drink parlors and even to the dance floor of the Wenonah Beach Casino where young men were described as 'tripping the light fantastic' with female dance partners.

Men in custody were taken to city hall where their cases were considered individually. The newspaper proclaimed: "The men who comprise the War Board in this city are determined that Bay City shall not harbor any slackers, and that the work or fight regulation must be strictly observed to the letter."

Draft evader Monte Kelly was arrested in rural Hampton Township, jailed briefly and taken to Camp Custer near Battle Creek for induction into the Army. A similar campaign in Detroit netted 2,000 suspected evaders, although most were not carrying their cards at the time they were checked and were ultimately released.

So-called 'war loafers,' described as men ages 18-60 and physically fit to perform manual labor and not continually employed in a lawful occupation, business, trade, calling or profession and not making reasonable effort to procure employment or who has refused labor for compensation shall be deemed a 'war loafer' subject upon conviction to a $100 fine and possibly six months in jail additional.

Even as the U.S. was enforcing the draft, agents of the Polish government arrived in Bay City to recruit native Poles for their army, local historian and crime author Tim Younkman has written.

Many Poles had been induced to immigrate to mid-Michigan because jobs were plentiful in the lumber industry. Some 23 Polish immigrants enlisted, and only one died during the war. A gala parade and a $100 check for each awaited the survivors in 1920.

"Polish statesmen called upon the thousands of Polish immigrants in the United States to join the Polish Army in France, a military force funded by the French government and organized by the Polish Falcons of America and Ignacy Paderewski, the world-famous Polish pianist," wrote David T. Ruskoski in 2006.

"Over 20,000 men trained in Canada and fought in the final months of the war on the Western front. While in France they were placed under the command of General Jozef Haller and became known as Haller's Army." They also were known as the 'Blue Army' because of their distinctive blue uniforms.

The atmosphere in local industries became frenetic as Bay City's North American Chemical Company shipped a continuous stream of chemicals used to make explosives to England for use by the British Army during all five years of the war.

That virtually unknown industry is profiled in a new book published by Historical Press L.L.C. "Mysteries of Skull Island & The Alkali." The book links other historical developments on the same site on the Saginaw River south of 41st Street, notably the massacre of Sauk Indians on Skull Island and the rise and fall of the McGraw Lumber Mill.

After the U.S. entered the war, Gen. John "Black Jack" Pershing issued an improbable call for 1,000 tons of mustard gas a day. The gas had never been produced in this nation, but Herbert Dow associate Dr. Albert W. Smith of Cleveland's Case Institute came to Midland on leave to make the attempt. Working with two dozen Army helpers and overcoming multiple barriers, Smith achieved the near impossible in several months.

Dow and Case archives and other historic sources were used in writing "The G-34 Paradox: Inside the Army's Secret Mustard Gas Project at Dow Chemical in World War I," also published by Historical Press.

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Dave Rogers

Dave Rogers is a former editorial writer for the Bay City Times and a widely read,
respected journalist/writer in and around Bay City.
(Contact Dave Via Email at carraroe@aol.com)

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